Game time conditions at Wrigley Field Saturday, per the boxscore of the Cubs’ 10-7 win over the Mariners:
Twenty miles per hour is putting it mildly. The Cubs didn’t even raise the team standings flags before the game (Bluesky link):
The wind helped the Cubs hit five home runs, and also created some adventures in fielding for Pete Crow-Armstrong in center field. In any case, there were three hours and nine minutes of baseball entertainment (and remember, without the pitch timer that would have easily been a four-hour game), so let’s get to it.
Cade Horton walked Julio Rodriguez with one out in the first. And then Horton picked Rodriguez off [VIDEO].
Then Horton struck out Cal Raleigh to end the inning [VIDEO].
Ian Happ gave the Cubs a 1-0 lead off Emerson Hancock’s very first pitch [VIDEO].
Hancock threw strike one to Kyle Tucker and then Tucker hit Hancock’s third pitch of the game out of the yard [VIDEO].
Three pitches, two runs. That’s pretty efficient offense! About the two homers, from BCB’s JohnW53:
According to my research, the first-inning home runs by Ian Happ and Kyle Tucker were the 399th time that the Cubs have hit back-to-back homers in the regular season since 1876.
They have hit three in a row 11 more times.
The first back-to-back also came in the first inning, by King Kelly and Cap Anson, at Worcester, Mass., on Sept. 28, 1881. Kelly, batting second, homer with a man on base.
Today’s back-to-back pair were the 53rd in the first inning. They hit three straight in the first twice.
A walk and a bloop double that eluded PCA in center put Mariners on second and third with nobody out in the second. Another bloop that Happ couldn’t catch made it 2-1 [VIDEO].
You can’t see it in that clip, but the wind was doing crazy things with baseballs in that inning. That left Mariners on first and third, but the Cubs got out of the inning with a tag play at the plate and a double play.
Then the offense opened up again in the bottom of the inning. Michael Busch walked and Carson Kelly doubled him to third. Nico Hoerner’s ground out made it 3-1 [VIDEO].
Vidal Bruján followed with a walk, putting runners on first and second for Happ. Boom! [VIDEO]
The Cubs extended the lead in the bottom of the third. A bloop double by PCA and a walk drawn by Dansby Swanson brought up Michael Busch. Boom! [VIDEO]
Now it’s 9-1 and this one’s going to be a breeze. Right? (Pun intended.)
Well… nope. The Mariners put two on the board off Horton in the fourth, partly due to his hitting a batter, making it 9-3.
And in the fifth, with two out and runners on first and third, this Bruján error allowed a run to score [VIDEO].
Pretty sure Matt Shaw makes that play and the inning ends. The Cubs simply need to find a better backup infielder. After the error, Horton was lifted for Drew Pomeranz, who’s been so good so far this year… but not in this game. Pomeranz allowed a pair of RBI hits and the Mariners had climbed to within 9-6, yikes.
The Cubs got one of those runs back in the bottom of the fifth on this laser beam of a home run by PCA, his 21st [VIDEO].
Play that clip with the sound up, you can hear it banging of the metal panel above the basket. Look at the launch angle on that one! [VIDEO]
Pomeranz also allowed two hits to begin the sixth and had to be lifted for Brad Keller. Kudos to Keller for getting out of that jam with thee straight strikeouts of three really good hitters, Rodriguez, Raleigh and Jorge Polanco.
In the seventh, after Randy Arozarena was hit by a pitch, the Cubs turned this unusual double play [VIDEO].
There are a few things going on here. Busch at first appeared to possibly have caught the ball — but if that were true, Arozarena would have been doubled off first when Busch stepped on the bag, and, in fact, you can see first-base umpire Edwin Moscoso rule that the ball was in play. So Busch stepping on the bag retired the hitter, Luke Raley, but Arozarena then needed to be tagged. Instead, it appears he was ruled out for running out of the baseline. In any case, the Cubs had a weird double play, and then Caleb Thielbar was summoned to face Cole Young.
Happ made a nice sliding catch of Young’s sinking liner to end the inning [VIDEO].
Thielbar remained in the game for the eighth and got some defensive help from Swanson to end the inning [VIDEO].
Daniel Palencia was summoned for the ninth, even with the game not in a save situation. Raleigh took him deep for his 30th [VIDEO].
After that, though, Palencia finished things off and the wind actually helped the Cubs. Donovan Solano popped up behind the plate and on an ordinary day, that’s in the seats. Not today, though! [VIDEO]
Headline writers of yore would have written “Cubs outlast Mariners” and that’s what happened, 10 runs being enough, but I’d have liked to see better relief work. The Bruján error made the three fifth-inning runs unearned to Horton, who deserved a better fate. And again, Keller stepped up big-time in the sixth. More on Keller from BCB’s JohnW53:
Today’s appearance was Brad Keller’s 33rd of the season and the 30th in which he pitched at least one full inning. The only previous one in which he struck out three batters was his first, in two innings at Arizona on March 28. In that game, he gave up two runs on four hits and hit a batter.
It was hot. How hot was it? Plate umpire Chad Whitson got dehydrated and had to leave the game [VIDEO].
That resulted in this curious little bit of play-by-play:
Dexter Kelley, the second-base umpire, went behind the plate and the game was completed with three umpires.
Then Mariners reliever Trent Thornton, in his third inning of relief, also had to leave, apparently dehydrated:
And now Trent Thornton is being examined by an EMT here in Chicago, after nearly collapsing during a mid-inning consultation with Dan Wilson and Mariners assistant athletic trainer Kevin Orloski.
He needed help to walk off the field. pic.twitter.com/8zBWjSFSHG
— Daniel Kramer (@DKramer_) June 21, 2025
Hope he’s okay.
About the Cubs’ five-homer game, from BCB’s JohnW53:
The Cubs’ five home runs tied their season high, set in a 13-11 win at home over the Diamondbacks on April 18 and tied in a 6-1 win at Detroit on June 7.
The April game was the only previous one at Wrigley Field in which the Cubs had hit even four homers. They have hit four on the road six times: twice at Pittsburgh and once each at Cincinnati, Los Angeles vs. the Dodgers, Philadelphia and Sacramento.
The Brewers won Saturday afternoon so the Cubs’ NL Central lead remains at 4½ games over Milwaukee and also St. Louis, as the Cardinals won in extra innings over the Reds. Cincinnati drops to 7½ games behind.
The Cubs will go for the series win Sunday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Colin Rea will start for the Cubs and Logan Gilbert gets the call for the Mariners. Game time is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.